Different Roads To the Super Bowl

By JACK CAVANAUGH

Published: January 25, 1998

ONE is from a predominantly black high school in Hartford, and the other from a practically all-white Hartford suburb. One is a lithe, soft-spoken 190-pound free safety; the other is a powerfully built 245-pound and somewhat raucous linebacker. What they have in common is that they will be the only players from Connecticut in today's Super Bowl football game in San Diego.

The two are Eugene Robinson, the free safety for the defending champion Green Bay Packers, who graduated from Weaver High School in Hartford in 1981, and Bill Romanowski, a linebacker for the Denver Broncos, who received a diploma from Rockville High School in Vernon, 15 miles west of Hartford, in 1984.

The 31-year-old Romanowski was the more likely professional prospect when he played in Vernon. An all-state linebacker who also played tight end and offensive tackle on offense and occasionally ran with the ball as a fullback and punted, he was recruited by major football powers like Notre Dame, Miami, the University of California at Los Angeles, Wisconsin, Texas and Boston College.

The 34-year-old Robinson, on the other hand, was not pursued by anyone as college loomed for him.

As it developed, Romanowski accepted a football scholarship to Boston College while Robinson went to Colgate -- which plays on a lower competitive level -- on an academic scholarship.

''No one tried to recruit Eugene, as I recall,'' said Marvin Jones, who coached Robinson during his junior and senior years at Weaver High. ''I remember when he applied to Colgate; I filled out part of a form, telling them about his ability as a football player.''

Colgate, as it turned out, was glad to get Jones's advice. Although Colgate is a member of the Patriot League and does not give out athletic scholarships, Robinson was a solid defensive back for the Red Raiders for three years. Still, said Bob Cornell, the Colgate sports information director, ''no one projected what would eventually happen to him.'' While Romanowski was drafted in the third round by the San Francisco 49ers in 1988 -- the year the 49ers won the first of two consecutive Super Bowl championships -- Robinson, armed with a degree in computer science in 1985, was not drafted at all. He was, however, invited to pre-season training camp by the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League, and, although a distinct longshot, was signed to a contract and spent 11 seasons with Seattle as a free-safety. The 6-foot 190-pound Robinson led the N.F.L. in pass interceptions in 1993 when he picked off nine passes and was voted by fellow players to play in the post-season Pro Bowl game in Honolulu.

In the belief that Robinson had slowed down after rupturing an Achilles tendon late in the 1994 season, the Seahawks tried to cut his salary -- which was around $1 million a season -- in 1996. But he refused to take a pay cut and, in a fortuitous move, was traded to the Green Bay Packers in June of 1996. It was a good year. With Robinson at free safety, the Packers proceeded to win the Super Bowl, something the Seahawks had never come close to doing.

''In Seattle, we were always struggling in the hope of just making the playoffs,'' said Robinson. ''Now here I was in the Super Bowl after 12 years in the league.''

Now Robinson -- who with 49 interceptions has more than any active player in the N.F.L. -- is back for the second year in a row in football's ultimate game.

Eugene Robinson, as a 110-pound sophomore at Weaver High, where basketball reigns, did not seem like much of a football prospect. But then Weaver was desperate for players. ''We were lucky to have 25 or 30 kids come out,'' said Jones, his coach there. ''And Eugene developed into a good player. He wasn't the hardest tackler, but he always had a sense for the ball.''

By the time Robinson was a junior, Jones recalls, he had grown to six feet and weighed about 170 pounds. ''We weren't very good, winning only three games altogether those two years,'' Jones said, ''but Eugene never got down. He was always very positive and in his senior year he was all-conference. He was basically a defensive back, but at times we used him as a receiver.''

An honor student, Robinson also was on the wrestling team and involved in student government. He was also an avid saxophone player who, while the Packers were in New Orleans for last year's Super Bowl, got up on the stage at a Bourbon Street nightclub, borrowed a saxophone and, to his teammates' delight, played a few riffs. Largely because of his interest in music, Robinson became an investor in a recording company in Seattle, where he lives with his wife, Gia, who is also from the North End section of Hartford, and their two children.

For the 6-foot 4-inch Romanowski, meanwhile, also selected to play in one Pro Bowl game, last January, it will be his third appearance in the Super Bowl, but his first with Denver, which he joined last season after six years with San Francisco and two with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Romanowski's route to the N.F.L. was far more predictable. ''Billy was slightly built, around 6 feet tall and 170 pounds, when he got on the varsity as a sophomore,'' said Tom Dunn, who has been the football coach at Rockville High for the last 19 years. ''But he filled out in his last two years. He had an outstanding work ethic and played every down as if it were the last down in a championship game. At times, we had to try to tone him down a bit so that he wouldn't expend all of his energy before the game was over.''